Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Google exec challenges Berners-Lee | CNET News.com

Google exec challenges Berners-Lee CNET News.com: "'What I get a lot is: 'Why are you against the Semantic Web?' I am not against the Semantic Web. But from Google's point of view, there are a few things you need to overcome, incompetence being the first,' [Google Director of Search and AAAI Fellow Peter] Norvig said. Norvig clarified that it was not Berners-Lee or his group that he was referring to as incompetent, but the general user.'We deal with millions of Web masters who can't configure a server, can't write HTML. It's hard for them to go to the next step. The second problem is competition. Some commercial providers say, 'I'm the leader. Why should I standardize?' The third problem is one of deception. We deal every day with people who try to rank higher in the results and then try to sell someone Viagra when that's not what they are looking for. With less human oversight with the Semantic Web, we are worried about it being easier to be deceptive,' Norvig said."